Close friends of mine might know how much I adore Marion Cotillard. I was never big on French actresses until I watched her incredible performance of Edith Piaf in La Vie En Rose. At that time I wasn't too big on French movies, either, until I watched this movie: Love Me If You Dare. Voilá, my heart was drenched in wine (thanks for that one, Norah)...
French movies about love often come with little twists which makes them different from the usually predictable Hollywood stuff where everyone knows that the main actor is going to get together with the main actress at the end. Seriously, guys, people who go to the movies want to be entertained, not bored.
This wonderful movie now is full of surprising twists, and one could refer to it as "'Harry and Sally' gone amok". (Yes, it is romantic. I promise.)
Before turning into a matter of life and death, everything starts with the friendship between a little boy named Julien and a little girl named Sophie - and with a pretty tin box given to Julien by his fatally ill mother. Since Sophie is being bullied at school, Julien gives the box to her to cheer her up under the condition that she lends him the box from time to time. Sophie demands proof of how important it is to him. This is the beginning of a game in which the box changes its owner after a completed dare.
As they grow older, Julien (now played by Guillaume Canet) and Sophie (now played by Marion Cotillard) slowly begin to fall in love with each other but neither wants to admit it. Too afraid of being rejected, their dares become more extreme and the two continue their perverted game well into their thirties until...
The (of course, French) philosopher and scientist Blaise Pascal said the famous words "The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know" (in German usually translated as "das Herz hat Gründe, die der Verstand nicht kennt"). Love Me If You Dare shows just how true Pascal's statement is, and you will find yourself thinking about it for quite a while. Watching the two protagonists deliberately hurt each other so that neither has to confess their love can only be described as an emotional roller coaster from which we can't seem to escape. Yes, it is stupid. Yes, the two are their own worst enemies.
But isn't that what people in love do: silly things?
RATING: 5/5
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